Brooklyn Today February 7: Downtown Brooklyn Tower Will Have Highest Pool in Western Hemisphere

Brooklyn Daily Eagle

THE LEDE: Happy hump day, Brooklyn! El Chapo will be tried by an anonymous jury, one Brooklyn school has a chess dynasty, and Downtown Brooklyn will have the highest pool in the Western Hemisphere. Plus, a holocaust denier could receive the GOP nomination for Congress in Illinois, we share the 50 best bars in NYC, and federal investigators say sleep apnea training could have prevented the New Jersey Transit and LIRR crashes last year. Finally, New Yorkers received a tsunami warning on Tuesday morning, a San Francisco teacher dangles a 7-year-old child over a balcony, and a fake doctor in India infects 21 people with HIV.

~DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN TOWER WILL HAVE HIGHEST POOL IN WESTERN HEMISPHERE: Brooklyn may soon be losing its pop-up pool in Brooklyn Bridge Park, but the borough is gaining another place to swim. The new oasis, located in Downtown Brooklyn, will have the same expansive views of the Manhattan skyline that the pop-up pool offers, but it will be 680 feet higher, according to Curbed. The 27-foot-long saltwater infinity pool will be located at the top of Brooklyn Point, a 720-foot-tall, 68-story tower at 138 Willoughby St., according to the New York Post. The pool area will be complete with a stargazing observatory, open-air movies, al fresco dining, a Brazilian ipe-wood deck and sunbathing chairs, the Post reports. The infinity pool will not only be the highest in New York City, but it will also be the “highest residential infinity pool in the Western Hemisphere.” The pool will be an estimated 24 feet taller than the infinity pool at Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands Hotel, which is roughly 656 feet in the air. (via Brooklyn Eagle)

~FEDS: SLEEP APNEA TESTING COULD HAVE PREVENTED BROOKLYN LIRR TRAIN CRASH: Federal investigators are blaming a lack of required testing for sleep apnea for recent train accidents in New York and New Jersey that killed one person and injured more than 200. The National Transportation Safety Board released a reportTuesday on accidents at Hoboken in September 2016 and in Brooklyn in January 2017. In both crashes the train’s engineers were found to have undiagnosed sleep apnea and couldn’t remember their trains accelerating before the crashes. The Hoboken crash killed a woman standing on the platform. The NTSB blamed New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Rail Road for not having required testing in place. It also blamed the Federal Railroad Administration for not making sleep apnea testing mandatory. Both trains were traveling well above the speed limit as they approached the stations and slammed into bumping posts at the terminals. Last year the Railroad Administration abandoned plans to require the testing as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to reduce federal regulations. (AP via Brooklyn Eagle)

~EL CHAPO TO BE TRIED BY ANONYMOUS JURORS IN BROOKLYN TRIAL: A Brooklyn federal judge ruled on Monday that all prospective and selected jurors trying alleged Mexican drug cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman will be anonymous for their safety and privacy. In response to prosecutors’ requests that all names, addresses and places of work for jurors be kept secret in the upcoming trial, Judge Brian Cogan ruled there was sufficient argument to go anonymous. “Here, the government has presented strong and credible reasons to believe that the jury needs protection,” Cogan wrote in his ruling. Those credible reasons included Guzman’s decades-long history of hiring “sicarios,” or hitmen to carry out hundreds of murders, assaults and kidnappings, including victimizing potential witnesses and those who spoke with law enforcement. In addition, federal prisoners in California released a video shortly after Guzman’s Jan. 2017 extradition to New York pledging to be the “hitmen” who will protect Guzman, the ruling details. The defense team, currently led by Eduardo Balarezo, denounced the video as a joke and argued anonymous jurors would create the impression Guzman is a dangerous person. (via Brooklyn Eagle)

~LPC OKS RENOVATION OF GREENPOINT WOOD-FRAME HOUSE THAT DEVELOPER WANTED TO DEMOLISH: Saved. A developer who wanted to demolish a wood-frame 1850s Greenpoint house will renovate it instead, as the city Landmarks Preservation Commission had recommended. On Tuesday, the commission voted unanimously to approve real estate investor Roei Paz'restoration plans for 111 Noble St. Wood-frame houses are especially prized in Greenpoint. They are an important element of its historic heritage. Many of them were the homes of shipwrights and ship carpenters who worked in the neighborhood in the 19th century. Here are some details of the house-renovation plans: The facade will be covered with painted wood clapboard. It is currently covered with plastic siding. The house's original roofline will be recreated. A modern porch with brick columns will be removed and replaced with a porch with tapered wood columns. (via Brooklyn Eagle)

~LEGENDARY EDWARD R. MURROW CHESS TEAM PREPS FOR STATE CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP: Move over Brooklyn Dodgers of old, and Brooklyn Nets of today. There's a dynasty from Brooklyn that has had "game" since the early ’90s. The legendary chess team at Edward R. Murrow High School is preparing for the 2018 New York State High School Chess Championships in Saratoga in March, where the school hopes to reclaim its state title. The legendary chess powerhouse has been ranked number one in the U.S. eight times as national champs. “It is a chess dynasty. The school attracts people who have an enormous amount of talent,” Christian Whitted, owner of New York Chess & Games on Flatbush Avenue, told us. Whitted said that Murrow chess coach Elliot Weiss “has been doing a fantastic job for many years — as far back as international grandmaster Aleksandr Lenderman, who was one of our top coaches here and one of the best players in the U.S. And it doesn’t stop there. One of our favorite long-time resident masters, Aleez Alade, went to Murrow.” (via Brooklyn Eagle)

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Staff Picks:

LONG READ: A white supremacist, holocaust denier and anti-Semite could receive the GOP nomination for Congress in Illinois. (via Chicago Sun Times)

TRAVEL: A writer and her three girlfriends travel to the Texas desert to escape reality, news headlines and their lives. (via NYT)

DRINK: Here are the 50 best bars in NYC, and No. 2 is a Cobble Hill staple.(via Time Out)

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NATIONAL BULLETIN: New Yorkers receive a tsunami warningon Tuesdaymorning...MetroCard machines will only accept cash this weekend...And a San Francisco teacher dangles a 7-year-old child over a balcony. (via Time Out, NYT and Miami Herald)

____________________________ EAGLE SPORTS: The Islanders climbed back into a playoff spot Mondaynight at Downtown’s Barclays Center. They also gave back a point they sorely needed if they hope to reach the postseason for the second time in three yearssince relocating to Brooklyn. "It's frustrating," Islanders captain John Tavaresadmitted after a gut-wrenching 5-4 overtime loss to the defending Western Conference champion Nashville Predators. "It's getting down to crunch time, got a chance to win the game in the last minute,” he added. “Obviously [we] want to get the two points." They were 43 seconds from accomplishing that feat, but Ryan Johansen ended any hope of a two-point night when he beat New York goalie Jaroslav Halak off a rebound at the 19:17 mark of the third period with Nashville goalie Pekka Rinne on the bench. (via Brooklyn Eagle)